There are numerous devices using a needle or trocar with a sharpened bone penetrating tip. Most are two part devices having a needle and an outer sleeve or shield to receive the needle. The use of these devices provides a way to make minimally invasive bone entry into the bony structure of the spine of a surgical patient.
Positioning the needle tip is extremely important and errors in properly doing this can result in serious nerve injury to the patient. To avoid this, the surgeon often relies on x-ray or other imaging techniques to insure the needle tip entry into the bone is proper and avoids cutting into the nerve or spinal cord.
The present invention described below has an improved capacity for imaging the needle tip during the surgical procedure.